Power Engineering – Areva team wins Yucca Mountain nuclear waste contract
Areva team wins Yucca Mountain nuclear waste contract
Power Engineering 31 October 2008 — Areva said the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a contract to USA Repository Services LLC, a unit of URS Corp. that includes Areva and the Shaw Group, to manage the used nuclear fuel repository project at Yucca Mountain, Nev. The five-year contract, which has an optional five-year renewal, is valued at $2.5 billion.
Power Engineering – Areva team wins Yucca Mountain nuclear waste contract
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
The Associated Press: Gates: Long-term outlook for nuke safety is bleak
Gates: Long-term outlook for nuke safety is bleak By ROBERT BURNS –WASHINGTON (AP) — The long-term outlook for keeping U.S. nuclear weapons safe and reliable is “bleak,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
The Hindu Business Line : Nuclear power uneconomical: Lester Brown
Nuclear power uneconomical:
THE HINDU Business Line 28 oct 08 Lester Brown WASHINGTON: At a time when India is focusing on developing sources of nuclear energy, a leading scholar has said nuclear power is uneconomical and little private capital is going into this sector while investors are pouring tens of billions of dollars in to wind farms each year.“Despite all the industry hype about a nuclear future, private investors are openly sceptical and while the world’s nuclear generating capacity is estimated to expand by only 1,000 MW this year, wind generating capacity will likely grow by 30,000 MW,” no ted environmentalist and scholar Mr Lester Brown said in a media article ‘The Flawed Economics of Nuclear Power’.Drawing attention to the book ‘The Nuclear Illusion’ by Amory B Lovins and Imran Sheikh, Mr Brown said the cost of electricity from a new nuclear power plant is around 14 cents per kilowatt hour while it costs only 7 cents per kilowatt hour at a wind farm
The founder of Earth Policy Institute, Brown, argued that given this huge gap, the so-called nuclear revival can only be done by unloading costs onto taxpayers, including the costs of disposing of nuclear waste, insuring plants against an accident and de commissioning the plant when it wears out.
The Hindu Business Line : Nuclear power uneconomical: Lester Brown
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, rafioactive, uranium
Barbara Rose Johnston: The Clean, Green Nuclear Machine?
The Clean, Green Nuclear Machine?
counter punch 27 oct 08 By BARBARA ROSE JOHNSTON
“…………………………Because nuclear energy was been redefined by the Bush administration as a national security concern, social and environmental safeguards can be legally ignored. Thus, as one example of many recent rulings, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under its enhanced authority to dismiss environmental and social safeguard legislation recently ruled that onsite above ground dry cask storage of PG&E’s radioactive waste at Diablo Canyon in California can go forward without further study of whether such storage is safe from terror attacks or adequately protects the health of nearby residents. The NRC’s ruling overturns a federal court order to consider these concerns………………………………………………s nuclear energy truly the clean, green machine that the Nuclear Energy Institute and its proponents make it out to be? Is it truly cost-effective? Will nuclear power finally prove to be a “safely-harnessed” source of sustaining energy? Or, will we once again, be lured into what many folks see to be a dance with the devil?…………………………………..
The average cost to build a nuclear power plant is reportedly some 2 billion dollars, though a 2007 estimate including costs to generate power by Lew Hay, chairman and CEO of Florida Power and Light, suggests that “the cost of a two-unit plant will be on the order of magnitude of $13 to $14 billion.” Actual flow of energy will not occur for years. Technological innovation has reduced the time it takes to build a nuclear reactor, it will still take some 7 – 12 years after plans are approved for energy to flow.
For those communities and workers that host the nuclear fuel chain — uranium mining, milling, enrichment, energy and military use, and storage of wastes — the label of “clean” and the notion of a “cost-effective” energy system is, simply and sadly, ludicrous. The no-emissions carbon footprint label assigned by the Nuclear Energy Institute ignores the significant environmental impact resulting from mining, transportation, processing fuel, using water as energy and coolant, and building nuclear power facilities. Cost-effective energy becomes an even more problematic label when you factor in the short-term and long-term health consequences of absorbing toxic heavy metals and the radioactive nature of these exposures, and the health care costs of treating such illness and disease.
And then there are the stewardship costs of protecting, storing, and (maybe some day) remediating nuclear waste. The cleanup for the 680-acre site of the Uravan uranium and vanadium mine and processing facility in Colorado completed in September 2008 reportedly cost $120 million. Cleanup costs from mining, milling, and the inevitable spills and releases associated with Manhattan Project research and Cold War militarism at 17 nuclear weapons plants have been projected in reports to Congress to reach between $100 billion to $200 billion dollars — and this estimate does not include the clean-up costs associated with nuclear weapons detonation, nor the cleanup of dumped waste from nuclear submarines. The eventual decommissioning of an aged nuclear power plant is currently priced at $300 million or more per plant. The costs to create, build, monitor and secure a safe storage facility for substances that pose a threat for tens of thousands of years to come are harder to estimate, given the many unknowns in the future.
Barbara Rose Johnston: The Clean, Green Nuclear Machine?
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, rafioactive, uranium
www.miningmx.com | energy Uranium One shuts the Dominion mine
Uranium One shuts the Dominion mine
Brendan Ryan 22 Oct 2008[miningmx.com] — URANIUM ONE has finally thrown in the towel on its troubled Dominion Mine near Klerksdorp and placed it on care and maintenance.The move follows a year of growing market speculation that the project was fatally flawed which was consistently denied by current CEO Jean Nortier and his predecessor Neal Froneman who resigned abruptly in February this year.Both Froneman and Nortier have at all times presented an overwhelmingly optimistic outlook on the future of Dominion despite repeated cuts in the mine’s forecast production profile over the past year.As of end-June the Dominion mine was valued in the company’s books at US$1.9bn compared with a total value for mineral interests, plant and equipment of $4.6bn………………………….. The failure of Dominion is one of South Africa’s biggest mining venture collapses………………………According to today’s statement Dominion has been closed following completion of a detailed life of mine planning process and budget “which has shown that the project would require a sustained recovery in uranium prices as well as significant additional capital investment in order to become economically viable.
www.miningmx.com | energy Uranium One shuts the Dominion mine
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, rafioactive, uranium
Inflation Hits Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump | NBC Chicago
Inflation Hits Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump
CHICAGO NEWS Oct 22, 2008WASHINGTON, DC, August 5, 2008 (ENS) – It will cost 38 percent more to build, operate and decommission the nation’s first nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada than the federal government estimated seven years ago, the U.S. Department of Energy said today in an updated life cycle cost estimate.
The highly radioactive waste is left over from nuclear power generation and national defense programs.
An increase in the amount of waste to be shipped and stored at the repository and more than $16 billion for inflation have added to the cost, says the DOE official in charge of Yucca Mountain………………………
The new cost estimate of $79.3 billion, when updated to 2007 dollars, comes to $96.2 billion, a 38 percent increase from the last published estimate in 2001 of $57.5 billion.
The total cost of building and operating the repository is divided between utility ratepayers and taxpayers, with ratepayers estimated to pay a little more than 80 percent, or $77.3 billion.
Inflation Hits Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Dump | NBC Chicago
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Bloomberg.com: Africa
Uranium One Closes Dominion, May Put Mine Up for Sale
By Ron Derby and Antony Sguazzin Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) — Uranium One Inc. shut its Dominion mine in South Africa and may seek a buyer for the operation as prices for the nuclear fuel slip to a two-year low. The company slid 19 percent in Johannesburg trading.
The operation, based on South Africa’s largest uranium deposit, needs a “sustained recovery” in uranium prices and “significant additional capital investment” to become economically viable, the company said in a statement to the Stock Exchange News Service in Johannesburg today………………..Prices have slumped 50 percent this year, partly on concern that the credit crunch will slow the development of new nuclear power projects……………….Uranium One fell 2.10 rand to 9 rand in Johannesburg trading, giving the company a market value of 4.22 billion rand ($378 million). The stock has declined 83 percent since Froneman’s departure and traded as high as 112 rand last year.
In Toronto, the shares fell 11 Canadian cents, or 10 percent, to 95 cents as of 11:11 a.m. local time.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
The limits of nuclear power – International Herald Tribune
The limits of nuclear power
Internationmal Herald Tribune Daniel Botkin 20 Oct 08 – “…………………….to what extent can nuclear power really help achieve energy independence?There’s a problem about nuclear energy that gets little attention. At present, fossil fuels provide 87 percent of the world’s total energy while nuclear power plants provide just 4.8 percent. (All nuclear power plants currently generate electricity, accounting for about 15 percent of world electricity generation, while fossil fuels produce almost 67 percent of the electricity.)…………………………
Suppose it were possible to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear power. Suppose that we could use nuclear energy to make liquid and gas fuels to power vehicles, and could do this quickly using conventional nuclear power plants.
We would have to build enough plants to increase energy production by 17.4 times, which means using 1.2 million tons of uranium ore each year. At that rate of use, the reserves of uranium would be used up in less than five years…………….Considering the enormous costs of building the large number of nuclear power plants that are contemplated to replace fossil fuels, the United States would be courting disaster if it chose this route with nothing but blind faith that there may be a lot more uranium out there if we only look for it………………………The bottom line: From what is known about resources of uranium and the present and future state of nuclear power plants, there is no way that nuclear power can play a dominant role in the world’s energy supply.
The limits of nuclear power – International Herald Tribune
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
TheStar.com | Business | Nuclear costs pressure industry
Nuclear costs pressure industry
TheStar.com Tyler Hamilton 20 Oct 08 “………………..Resource, labour and regulatory constraints continue to draw attention to the risks and uncertainties of building new nuclear reactors, and as North American utilities start digging into the details they’re finding expansion of their nuclear fleets are likely to cost much more than originally thought.
And that’s ignoring any impacts the current credit crunch could have on financing these massive projects……………………………..
Over in Finland, energy group Teollisuuden Voima is now saying a next-generation reactor being built by France’s Areva SA could be delayed until 2012, three years behind schedule. Already, the Olkiluoto 3 plant is reportedly $2 billion over budget since construction began in 2005…………………
Credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s released a report last Wednesday – “We expect that capital costs for nuclear projects will be significantly higher than what we have seen in the power industry thus far,” said the agency, referring to the unique labour and material costs associated with nuclear development. “The nuclear construction industry will be particularly prone to price spurts from transportation bottlenecks and fuel-price swings because nuclear units require a significantly higher amount of material than do other types of power assets.”
Complicating the risks even more, it said, was a “scanty construction track record for the new technologies and an untested regulatory process.” The nuclear industry knows it. At a World Nuclear Association conference in London last month, executives said costs have jumped so quickly they no longer wanted to publicly commit to estimates.
TheStar.com | Business | Nuclear costs pressure industry
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Bloomberg.com: Europe
Areva to Settle Finnish Project Loss With Client TVO )By Anne-Sylvaine Chassany Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Areva SA, the world’s largest reactor maker, is negotiating with Teollisuuden Voima Oyj, or TVO, to share losses at a reactor it is building for the Finnish utility………………………………OL3, which has been plagued by component, construction and organization problems since it started in 2005, is more than 25 percent over its 3 billion-euro ($4.1 billion) initial budget and its delivery date has been pushed back two years to mid-2011. Even that target is “challenging,” Jouni Silvennoinen, senior VP at TVO, said today in a presentation on site……………….
The company has never disclosed the exact amount of provisions for the project over the time. Areva’s reactors and services unit had a 258 million-euro operating loss in the first half on additional charges as the company tried to accelerate the work and allocated more resources than planned, it said.
The OL3 contract was the first reactor order negotiated by Areva after the nuclear power industry’s long pause.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Nuclear agency worries fear will block growth – International Herald Tribune
Nuclear agency worries fear will block growth
International Herald Tribune By James Kanter October 16, 2008“……………………………The eport by the Nuclear EnergyAgency, an organization in Paris that advises industrialized countries on nuclear power, said the technology represented a more secure supply of power than oil or gas. But it said that opposition to nuclear power remained strong enough to curtail such an expansion.
………………………………….The report said that “a significant fraction of public opinion perceives that the risks of nuclear energy outweigh its advantages.” The report noted that people were more “concerned about some aspects surrounding nuclear energy (radioactive waste, terrorism and proliferation) than about the actual operation of nuclear power plants.”………………Skeptics of nuclear power say that expanding the technology would require huge amounts of government subsidies and would be an inefficient use of taxpayers’ money, which could be better spent on developing renewable sources of energy like solar, wind and bio-fuels and on increasing energy efficiency.
Perhaps the most serious concern facing the industry is the question of how to handle nuclear waste.
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Nuclear agency worries fear will block growth – International Herald Tribune
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Rio warning sends resource stocks plummeting | theage.com.au
Rio warning sends resource stocks plummeting
The AgeBarry FitzGerald October 17, 2008 RIO TINTO’S confession that the five-year commodities boom was unravelling has triggered a global sell-off in resource equities and mineral commodities.
The big four of the industry – BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Xstrata and Anglo American – took their biggest one-day share-price hits since the 1987 crash while the slide in metal prices accelerated, in some cases to below marginal costs of production.
Rio let the cat out of the bag on Wednesday in its September quarter production report.
Tags: nuclear, antinuclear, radioactive, uranium
Old dog, nuke tricks | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
Environment America says McCain’s nuclear expansion would be ‘an economic disaster’
BVGrist by Kate Sheppard 14 Oct 2008Environment America today released a new report looking at the environmental implications of John McCain’s plan to build 45 new nuclear reactors by 2030, and 100 over time. Their report concludes that McCain’s plan would be “an economic and environmental disaster.”
Environment America, which has endorsed Democrat Barack Obama in the presidential election, found that the 45 reactors would cost taxpayers $315 billion, because most of the funding would have to come from taxpayer-backed federal loans. They also found that expanding the nuclear industry would create less than a quarter of the 700,000 that McCain promised in the first presidential debate. And since the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s trade association, estimates that it takes about 10 years to bring a new nuclear power plant online, it would do little for short-term energy concerns. Nuclear power is also resource-intensive — 45 nuclear power plants would use between 200 billion to 350 billion gallons of water per year. And, of course, there are the outstanding concerns about safety, storage, and disposal…………………………..
Their report concludes that McCain’s nuclear plan “fails to take advantage of cleaner, cheaper alternatives” like wind and solar, which “can deliver more energy much sooner than building new nuclear power plants, and create more jobs at a lower cost to taxpayers — without the risks.”
Old dog, nuke tricks | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
Tags: nuclear
Rio looks to rebuild confidence | smh.com.au
Rio looks to rebuild confidence
Sydney Morning HeraldJamie Freed October 15, 2008 RIO Tinto’s chief executive, Tom Albanese, will today attempt to shore up market confidence in the miner’s decision to reject a hostile bid from BHP Billiton amid a worsening outlook for key commodities.
After the release of Rio’s quarterly report this afternoon, he will also be required to address concerns his company will not meet its target of $US7 billion ($10.4 billion) of additional asset sales by the end of the year because of poor market conditions…………………………Rio’s uranium subsidiary, Energy Resources of Australia, yesterday lowered its annual production guidance from a previous range of 5400 to 5900 tonnes to a level “expected to approach” 5400 tonnes.
Bloomberg.com: Australia & New Zealand
Paladin Says Crunch May Scupper Some Uranium Projects By Jesse RiseboroughOct. 15 (Bloomberg) — Paladin Energy Ltd., the Australian company producing uranium in Namibia, said the global credit crisis will delay or scupper planned industry projects, cutting supplies of the nuclear fuel.“The impact of the credit tightness on the supply side of the uranium business will probably cause the deferral or cancellation of some planned uranium projects,” Perth-based Paladin said today in a statement.The worst U.S. financial crisis since the Great Depression has made banks more reluctant to lend money, raising global borrowing costs. JPMorgan Chase & Co. last week cut its uranium price forecast through to 2010, citing the potential for the freeze to slow nuclear power project development.The credit crunch will also “reduce the money available for exploration companies, which will only exacerbate the supply- demand imbalance in the future,” Paladin said.
Paladin dropped 3 cents, or 13 percent to A$2.27 at 10:23 a.m. Sydney time on the Australian stock exchange. It’s dropped 67 percent this year.
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PLEASE OPPOSE HR 8255 AND S.3639 – bills would accelerate satellite deployment, with no environmental review or safeguards – https://ncstd5li.quorum.us/campaign/169331/
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